A true excellent classic loner
By Jack Anderson on March 8, 2018
(7/10)

PREDICTION TOPICS
There are themes that rarely work and that offer an extremely low quality ratio. For example, episodes and movies based on technology often age very poorly and are rarely realistic in their treatment. Rm9 is the most recent and calamitous example.
Conversely, there are themes like Familiar, which often work. Because it's enough to scare you. Because, if I remind you, if X-Files was a movie, it would be a horror movie. Back a quarter of a century back, our revered, adored, venerable and adorable Chris Carter was inspired by Kolchak and wanted to scare spectators every week.
Before talking about black oil or even extraterrestrial colonization, the first and best season of X-Files remains that of Squeeze, Ice, Beyond the Sea, Darkness Falls and Tooms. Mutants, serial killers, killer insects.

I WOULD WELL REPEAT A TOUR OF THE COAST OF THE FRONTIERES OF REAL
X-Files is a series of horror. Familiar proposes us a precisely familiar theme and returns us right in the second season. Because this episode would easily have had its place between Die Hand Die Verletzt and Irresistible.
From the pregeneric, we are sent back to our first love. As Darin Morgan and James Wong did a few weeks ago, the screenwriter Benjamin Van Allen and the director Holly Dale make us redo a tour of Aux Frontières Du Réel, see our first televised love, who made us an appointment on the M6 ​​channel and let yourself be watched in a loop. We would not want to go backwards, but yet we would pay dearly to relive for one moment the time of happiness and that's what happened last night.

A RECIPE
Yes, I loved this episode of X-Files. Nothing but the sentence itself seemed impossible after last week's rant. Mulder and Scully had literally disappeared in favor of an immeasurable and definitive void.
As I'm just repeating since the beginning of this revival, we need an investigation, a forest, rain, mist, Mulder and Scully seriously (and not David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson kidding), a slow realization and asked, a dark subject. These are elements that we as purist fans know by heart. Because yes, even if the art at this part beautiful magic, it remains no less than we all know the recipe for a good episode of X-Files, to have seen precisely 215. And if the we count the views in loop, we have probably seen several thousand episodes.
And as Jacques Weber quoted, it takes time not to be stupid. We have collectively grown through the series. Some of us learned English through the series, some got into science, some even became FBI agents. Many women on social networks mention that the character of Dana Scully is a force for them. Because X-Files is all that at once. An art, but also a strength and a source of culture.
And the television and art culture that is ours makes us say that to make a good episode of X-Files, it's better to deal with a story of murdering little children in a Vancouver forest than filming Mulder and Scully smiling. silly broad shot without dialogue and without history.
A good episode of X-Files is:
- A tablespoon of investigation.
- A ladle of Mulder and Scully exchanging divergent theories.
- A forest.
- A rotten weather (rain, wind and steam coming out of the mouth, failing to find a term for this effect).
- A hint of mystery (we do not discover the plot until the end of the episode).
- A terrifying character (the character in the mask).
- Real second credible characters.

THE CHARACTER
The character with the smiling mask is sublime. Perfect. Iconic. I love it. The pregeneric immediately sent me back to the first seasons of the series and is simply perfect. I found myself fully and for the first time since this revival in the series. Because it's very ironic, but in this revival, it's the only classic episode. By that I mean that Founder's Mutation happens in full sun, Home Again is happening in town and Ghouli is mythological. Familiar is therefore the one and only classic loner in my opinion. And it's a huge waste, when you think of the brevity of this revival (18 episodes only).

ALL I KNOW IS THAT I DO NOT KNOW
Those who find me peremptory (translate: dumbbell (translate: a big bastard (translate: strongly in two weeks that he closes his mouth))) will appreciate these next words. This episode proves to me by A + B that it is quite possible to produce an excellent episode of X-Files with Mulder and Scully. Magic can still operate. Thismagic seems almost elusive and the more time passes, the more it becomes impossible to grasp it. But when she's here, it's a feast for the eyes and the soul. I discover the episode in my hotel room and suddenly I feel sent back in my childhood, during the second season. It's a total happiness.
Note once again that we already knew how to do that. Have you seen Mulder's and Scully's clothes? The difference is glaring with the clothes they wear in some previous episodes. Here, the tones are dark and the clothes do not take over the rest. It sounds basic, but it was a big mistake in some other episodes. The devil is in the details. Does Colombo wear Armani suits? No. I extrapolate, but you understand me.
Mulder and Scully are serious. It's so rare in this revival that it's a deep relief. They do not look at each other with the mischievous look. They are two FBI agents (do I have to remind you?) Who are doing an investigation. Point.
Also, Mulder finally has a utility. Ditto for Scully. They complement each other perfectly. She proceeds to an autoposy, he questions a child. The duo works perfectly.

X-FILES FOREVER
I will go even further. I think Chris Carter was not wrong at all. I tended to openly mock him when he said that X-Files can go on endlessly. Seeing this episode, I think that indeed, the very concept of the series is larger than Mulder and Scully and can, indeed, continue.
On the other hand, it will obviously require to cut the cord, that it is with the main actors, the mythology and, yes, its creator and all his team.

PRODUCTION
And I really have to write a whole paragraph about Holly Dale's perfect realization. I had the chance to exchange some characters with her on Twitter and I will go immediately thank her for this great job.
After the horrors of Chris Carter and Glen Morgan, it's a real pleasure to have a real director. It's really a total relief. God it feels good to see a good "movie". I think that as fans of the series, we all have a soft spot for horror episodes. Well, she does it wonderfully. And we see that nothing is due to chance. It is clear that she did her job.

FAULTS
Certainly, the episode to his faults, let's be frank. Mulder sometimes has an awkward bodylanguage. The dialogues on McCarthyism work badly. And the conclusion is a bit B series.
But no matter, because the episode works and is fun to see. And at the point where we are, that's all we ask for the series.
Oh, and Scully's cup is really awful. To say that Gillian Anderson has beautiful hair and is disfigured in this way overwhelms me, but I do not want to spend time talking about each other's cuts.

ABSTRACT
To summarize, Familiar is an excellent episode, a loner in its most classic form. And even if it has some flaws, it is nonetheless very appreciable. I give it a nice 7 out of 10.

I thought that the clown would be the main hook. Nothing at all. Like what too much to watch the spoilers I let myself have.
In this episode we find a real classic of the genre. For a bit, we would feel parachuted in season 2, in our beautiful years 1994-95. For more than allusions, they are true quotes from old episodes.

Self-citations:
Die hand die vertletzt, Our town or Syzygy for the appearance of a city under evil influences. Fresh bones is perhaps (for my greatest pleasure) the most obvious for the final scene with candles ... In terms of shorter shots like the scene of the ceremony at church we think of Irresistible (for our greatest pleasure yet!). As for the pursuit of cop cars, I immediately thought of The Erlenmyers flask and its pre-generic scene.
But the palm of the quotes is the superb Chinga! The song, close-ups on the pale faces of children.
Suffice to say that it's a sweet memories of this episode. The story is well done. The cruelty and the collective barbarity being the relay of the justice ... All these elements confer a health of the series which slices radically with the previous episode, which told us with a great new novelty the dangers of the technologies and our world modern (Wow we did not know!); that and Scully's strawberry vibrator and Mulder's nose hairs ... How can we go from such a thing to this episode?

The other actors:
Another positive element of this episode is the game of secondary actors. We believe in. We are on board for a moment. Expressions in emotional nuances really echo the violence of the plot. Because let's not forget that the whole of a good episode is about details. We remember the magnificent performance of Heather McComb in Die hand die verletzt. The kids are very convincing to tell the truth.

The duo:
Regarding M and S, I do not hide my pleasure to find a little seriousness and lightened confrontation in their approach. Their unity is solid, but some nuances of inquiry apprehend us with their deep, intrinsic nature. He, invoking evil magical forces, she invoking the law and the rationality of the facts. For a bit, I almost saw Dogget in Scully. I find Scully still a little jaded, especially when the dead girl happens to be named Emily. We all know that Scully has hard leather, but what a big gap the weather has made between that and the whining of season 9 ...

The story:
The story itself is not of a crazy originality, it must be agreed. This is his main fault; not as to its construction or impeccable realization, but just to its nature, its purpose. I have neither seen nor read That, but it seems to me that the allusion is more than pregnant ... The scenery and the climate are more than all the main vector of reconciliation with the old seasons.

Conclusion:
This horrifying episode revives the good old, well-thought-out and simmering loners of our decidedly inspiring old seasons. This is a double statement that says a lot about our time, which praises the heritage on the one hand, but brandishes it as a reactionary totem on the other. However, the least fan will see there a work that revisits its own origins. This episode is in the wake of his predecessors. So there is a desire to inherit. I note in this regard that apart from the cop who seeks the profile of the suspect on his computer (and the scene lasts a minute), apart from also the wall screen on which the kid looks at his stuff, current technologies are for so say absent. This observation is all the stronger because it facilitates this return to the foundations; it facilitates this trip in the 90's offered by the episode.
A mixed impression emerges from me. A season sawtooth that keeps trying to reconnect with a past by definition, and at the same time surfing on the triviality of our time, even on the laziness of our society assisted. The example of Ghouli.net to give substance to an episode that has not taken enough time to do so is evocative (episode super elsewhere).
More simply, let's say that when an episode revives his classics, he walks, he seduces the fans. The proof with the previous comments and this one. In other words: no need to go looking for things convoluted and ultra-modern, to sleep with Black mirror to please. Rm9 is the emptiness that is taken for full, while here it is the good old old-fashioned dictation. The rectifier-wrong implacable. The consciousness of the original juice found, the rusticity in close-up. The febrile nerve of the pissing and gobbling little people ... Sort of a small town without fiber optics, but reconnecting with the primary instincts of man: revenge, deception, sick solidarity, compact madness, brutal deviance ...

Familiar a title consciously or unconsciously chosen for the fan of the beginnings when I see the emotions that I crossed during my viewing.

From the first scene, I felt familiar ground. It was crazy, I found an atmosphere so clean at first, we start with a playground that does not inspire tenderness in front of innocence and its games since from this minute the staging leads us to something and it is felt that the danger step by step approaches. The silence, only broken by the song of the child, the mist, the icy texture of the image, this huge arched known forest which one wonders if it will engulf the little boy and if the terror will come from her. I love it when this forest becomes the playground of horror because its always so threatening appearance is so adapted to that. First introduced entity: Mr. Chuckle Teeth.

For a long time, I had the impression that this forest functioned a little like a factory which created and let on the Men its own bestiary: the Pilot, The Jersey Devil, Fallen angel, Darkness Falls, Die Hand Die Verletzt, Quagmire. ..

This forest is sheltered, or creates its own monsters and awaits the right moment to throw them on us. Here sad report, the forest also becomes the tomb of children. Mr Chuckle Teeth, without being the only center of intrigue, did not inspire me since the Trailer. No doubt because it brings me back to a very famous clown character in the world of Stephen King. Thinking back to "It", Mr. Chuckle Teeth and the four "Teletubbies" with the black ink of the episode, I find myself wondering about the reasons that make a child feel so spellbound by a televised or literary incarnation and which displays a look as unhealthy. The authors will have understood how to play and create incredible intrigues in the world of horror, Mr Chuckle Teeth and "It" have in common this totally psychopathic smile and their crazy eyes, but I admit that it is especially the four Teletubbies and especially the appearance of one of them in front of the glass door of little Emily who sent me back to my childhood terrors. My heart literally came up during this scene. I want to say how one can quietly follow a show where the characters (supposed to be totally stupid in order to be adapted to the young audience) have a look like this: black and demonic, almost an abyss alone. Honestly, I congratulate to the writers for having made this tour de force, although ...

So far, the episodes are constantly sending us back to others. The sources of inspiration for these last two seasons are clearly at the stage of exhaustion if each time I say to myself: it reminds me of this other Loner. This is the problem in these episodes, we do not concretely create the original new.

And this episode, although great in its realization, finally brings us back to what? At the classical, we are delighted to finally return to what we have seen a thousand times, back to the origins, the first, the Vancouver before, the first series ... even the characters are affected with the return of the usual debate Mulder unpacking all his incredible culture on the paranormal and Scully opposing with its rationality.
Besides, I would point out that here these two stand in the place of analysts and witnesses throughout the episode, but in the end they act in no way. At no time do they succeed in preventing anything, including injustice: the death of children, the witch hunt, the death of the man accused of pedophilia (accusation that proves questionable it seems to me elsewhere), they do not finish the episode by killing the monster, the investigation ends itself by the death by the fire of an improvised witch and they finalize by fleeing a city always under the yoke of the demon ( the device that turns alone at the end). They illuminate more than they act and their absence would have given rise to an identical episode in all the sequences of events. You said very well skinner, the jewel of this episode is the climate and scenery, propitious grounds for an effective and horrifying episode as we like it.

Beyond that I really liked the idea, the terror plays two effective cards and touches us in the heart: the victims are chosen from the most innocent and the baits that lead to this horror are the characters of the childhood and who are here metamorphosed and made unhealthy as possible even if their basic pace was already in my eyes distressing. These are the famous classics of the genre: "It" was a clown, Chucky a simple doll, and Chinga, Michael Myers kills at the age of six years ... The banal and harmless are assigned to the image of the of the series "Goosebumps" where all the sets and objects of everyday life fell, fell under the devil or became a carnivorous plant. I recognize that this style speaks to me, I am a fan of horror movies, I agree for more than one reason only the fact that we come back to the real X Files.